Hints for traveling light on a trip

I am the Queen of overpacking! I should just cut my clothing list in half, but I just can’t. TFS!

I am too, we rarely travel and if we do it's by air so I was very upset when southwest announced it was charging for bags. I've been pondering just taking a carryon for an upcoming trip to Charleston. I love having the room to pack what I want, but hate having to haul it around when we get to our destination but can't check in. 

I too have been known to bring multiple pairs of underwear for just a few days travel, especially if it's going to be hot. So while I may be able to get by with a carry on for Charleston you know I'll have mulitple pairs of underwear stashed in various spots - and we're only going for 3 days!

I am excellent at packing in only a carryon plus my backpack. It doesn't matter how big or small the trip. For longer trips I do bring along Norwex laundry strips so I can either sink wash stuff like bras and undies or do a full load if we are somewhere with a washing machine. Some tricks are to make sure all your tops can mix and match with all of your bottoms. The same goes for shoes. Also, decant your toiletries into smaller containers.

PS - Compression packing cubes are a game changer!

I keep repeating this to myself, as we continue to go home realizing we've used less and less of what we brought.

Growing up, my mom would never dream of doing laundry while on vacation. So we'd schlepp home trash bags full of two or more weeks of dirty clothes and have to wash them ALL when we got home. Of course, this was a side-effect of having so. many. clothes. as well. And she'd want us to save out nicest stuff for the actual full vacation days, so we'd wear out most ill-fitting clothing on the travel days---fun!

And when I started off traveling with kids, I did the same, each day had a little bag with a full outfit, plus I'd pack extras, as well, and DH said to me "We *can* wash clothes, you know." And I was like "Oh yeah, we can." It's was such a foreign concept to me.

Honestly it's not the clothes - it's all the other stuff people pack that takes too much room. We went to Greece last summer for 10 days and I easily packed in a carry on and probably only rewore a couple skirts and a dressy dress that was only worn for dinner. Especially for summer, clothes are small and squishy! We went to Brussels and Barcelona in the spring for 10 days and it was a bit tougher, but if you wear your big shoes, it's not that tough. I am a carry on only devotee, but never do laundry and also really enjoy fashion, so am far far from a minimalist and truly have no issues - tanks and sundress are small! add a a couple toppers and they can go far!

Most of my trips are by air. The only item that I must take / wear, is my *lucky* top. 🤪 I used to have a lot of anxiety about flying, hence the lucky top. It’s a pink short sleeve polo. I only wear it on day 1 and the return day. If it’s cold, I wear a cardigan over it. Wash it when I get home and leave it hanging until it’s needed again. Other than that shirt, I generally pack light enough for just a big carry on.

This is such a personal choice, so I'm not hating on whatever people choose regarding checked or carryon. I can tell you why we personally do not like checked luggage. We have had some bad experiences with lost luggage, even with the airtags. DH is 6'3" and has had his luggage lost going to China and going to Europe. The Europe trip was a 2 week, multi-city work trip. His luggage literally followed and missed him by a day or 2. He ended up having to buy all new clothes in Italy and it wasn't easy finding pants long enough. He ended up coming home head to toe Hugo Boss. He looked like he walked off the set of Jersey Shore. The lost luggage in China was less funny. They didn't have any pants that worked for his long legs.

We do carryon only going to our destination. Outfits are coordinated so that pants/shorts can be worn with more than one top. I pack one extra pair of shoes. We have done 2 week Europe vacations and had no problem with just going carryon. In fact, we were glad we did because not every train station has elevators and lugging big heavy suitcases upstairs wouldn't have been fun.

Coming home is a different story. We tend to check a duffle bag with dirty clothes so we can free up luggage space for any souvenirs. Sometimes we even check more than one bag coming home.

As others have said, it's all the other stuff that takes up space. I keep my makeup simple, tend to flat iron my hair so that I don't have to bring all of my curly hair products. Travel snacks and electronics go in the backpack. After almost 29 years of traveling together, we have our system down.

Always have to pack underwear as if you're gonna shit your pants at least 4 times. 😂😂

Went on a work trip once. I had forgotten people don't know how to pack "light" It was a 4 day trip. 2 days of travel (to/from) and 2 days of seminars. One of my collogues packed 6 full outfit changes because she couldn't decide what she might want to wear plus a different pair of shoes for every outfit. Since it was late October all footwear was boots or pumps.. no flats or sandals. A few different sweater or jacket options. Couldn't decide how she wanted to do her make up or hair so a good sized suitcase for that. She had two hefty suitcases to haul around and check plus a carry on and personal item (Purse). My other colleague and I are very light packers. We each had a carry on plus our purses. The first colleague wanted us to help her with her bags. That was a hard "pass" for us. I had one night gown, wore one dress and packed a second one. So one dress was worn for travel day, rinsed out in the sink and hung to dry to be worn on seminar day 2. The other dress was worn on seminar day 1 then travel day home. One pair of shoes for all four days and one pair of flat mule style house shoes. I do pack one extra set of undies in case of an unanticipated appearance of Aunt Flo. A very basic shawl since the forecast was for chilly evenings but not freezing weather (it was New Orleans not northern Canada) Pack all you want! Just don't ask me to deal with your luggage. The next year she got it down to one checked bag. Pretty sure if we had helped her with her bags the second year would have been just as over packed.

Double check, but I believe contact solution counts as "medically necessary," so you just need to show it to TSA. A lot of brands do sell travel sized bottles though, so that may be an option as well.

during the pandemic I could not find travel sized contact solution bottles. I was going on one trip overseas and didn't want to pack it in the big luggage as it was essential so i looked up all the tsa info and had my medical argument ready.. and it did not work . I talked to the tsa agent, then got to talk to the hazardous materials specialist.. (looked like a border patrol guy with all the protective gear.). turns out that the hydrogen peroxide in contact solution is NOT permitted as medical.. as they don't know the concentration and it is considered bombmaking material.. they said they purposely kept the website vague.. cause I complained bitterly about how was I supposed to know that?
no way. fortunately, I had a tiny folding backpack in my carry on so I had to exit tsa, put the bottle in the backpack, go back to check in, check in the tiny backpack, go back through tsa.

so that turned out to be a fun day. I cannot decant contact solution.. as it is very very important to have a high standard of cleanliness.. perfectly fine for shampoo.

now I can find the small bottles.. but it is tough to pack several in my little quart ziplock if I want to do carry on for more than one week.

I used to take a twisted sense of pride in knowing I could pack super light and it would be totally ok.

I combine alot of trips so it's not unusual for me to work/visit/hike/camp/fish/workout/sightsee/beaches/golf/great dinners etc all in one weekend/week!

Also, I do a ton of travel for work and personal and gained a bunch of "status." Status = free bags! And let me tell you, it's nice not to have bras and leggings hanging all over the bathroom. It's nice to have your "good boots" rather than make due and stub your toes on rocks in sneakers. Wear the cute shoes. Have different bags that match different outfits.

Life is challenging enough. I like to have clean underwear and the smallest bag possible isn't a gold medal I'm worried about.

When we used to travel we used packing cubes and rolled our clothing into the cubes. We would also take socks that we were ready to throw out. We would wear a pair for a day then throw them out at the end of the day. If you each do this for a week you can make more room in your packing cubes.